UC-NRLF 


"M 


$B    ETM    ^Eb 


Sngetgoll  3Lecture0  on  Smmottalitg 


Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy.  By 
George  A.  Gordon.     i8g6. 

Human  Immortality.  Two  supposed  Objections 
to  the  Doctrine.     By  William  James.     1897. 

DiONYsos  and  Immortality:  The  Greek  Faith 
in  Immortality  as  affected  by  the  rise  of  Indi- 
vidualism.    By  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler.     1898. 

The  Conception  of  Immortality.  By  Josiah 
Royce.     1899. 

Lite  Everlasting.    By  John  Fiske.     1900. 

Science  and  Immortality.  By  William  Osier. 
1904. 

The  Endless  Life.  By  Samuel  M.  Crothers. 
1905. 

Individuality  and  Immortality. 


By  Wilhelm 
By  Charles  F. 
By  WiUiam  S. 


Ostwald.     1906. 
The  Hope  of  Immortality. 

Dole.      1907. 
Buddhism  and  Immortality. 

Bigelow.     1908. 
Is   Immortality    Desirable?     By  G.   Lowes 

Dickinson.     1909. 
Egyptian  Conceptions  of  Immortality.     By 

George  A.  Reisner.      1911. 
Intimations  of  Immortality  in  the  Sonnets 

OF   Shakespeare.      By   George    H.    Palmer. 

1912. 
Metempsychosis.    By  George  Foot  Moore.   1914. 
Pagan  Ideas  of  Immortality  During  the  Early 

Roman  Empire.    By  Clifford  Herschel  Moore. 

1918. 
Living  Again.  By  Charles  Reynolds  Brown.  1920. 
Immortality  and  Theism.     By  William  Wallace 

Fenn.    1921. 


Immortality  and  the 
Modern  Mind 


XTbe  iTngecsoll  Xecture,  1922 

Immortality  and  the 
Modern  Mind 

By 

Kirsopp  Lake,  M.A.,  D.D. 

IVinn  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History 
in  Harvard  University 


Cambridge 
Harvard  University  Press 

London:  Humphrey  Milford 

Oxford  University  Press 

1922 


^3 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


THE  INGERSOLL  LECTURESHIP 

Extract  from  the  will  of  Miss  Caroline  Haskell  Ingersoll,  who  died  in 
Keene,  County  of  Cheshire,  New  Hampshire,  Jan.  26,  i8q3 

First.  In  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  my  late  beloved 
father,  George  Goldthwait  Tngersoll,  as  declared  by  him 
in  his  last  will  and  testament,  I  give  and  bequeath  to 
Harvard  University  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  where  my 
late  father  was  graduated,  and  which  he  always  held  in 
love  and  honor,  the  sum  of  Five  thousand  dollars 
($5,000)  as  a  fund  for  the  establishment  of  a  Lectureship 
on  a  plan  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  the  Dudleian 
lecture,  that  is  —  one  lecture  to  be  delivered  each  year, 
on  any  convenient  day  between  the  last  day  of  May  and 
the  first  day  of  December,  on  this  subject,  "the  Im- 
mortality of  Man,"  said  lecture  not  to  form  a  part  of 
the  usual  college  course,  nor  to  be  delivered  by  any 
Professor  or  Tutor  as  part  of  his  usual  routine  of  in- 
struction, though  any  such  Professor  or  Tutor  may  be 
appointed  to  such  service.  The  choice  of  said  lecturer 
is  not  to  be  limited  to  any  one  religious  denomination, 
nor  to  any  one  profession,  but  may  be  that  of  either 
clergyman  or  layman,  the  appointment  to  take  place  at 
least  six  months  before  the  delivery  of  said  lecture. 
The  above  sum  to  be  safely  invested  and  three  fourths 
of  the  annual  interest  thereof  to  be  paid  to  the  lecturer 
for  his  services  and  the  remaining  fourth  to  be  expended 
in  the  publishment  and  gratuitous  distribution  of  the 
lecture,  a  copy  of  which  is  always  to  be  furnished  by 
the  lecturer  for  such  purpose.  The  same  lecture  to  be 
named  and  known  as  "the  Ingersoll  lecture  on  the 
Inunortality  of  Man." 


484061 


OS  yap  eoLP  deKri  ttjp 
eavTOv  \l/vxv^  (TCjocrav 
CLTToKecreL  avTrjv. 

Mark  viii.  35. 


IMMORTALITY  AND 
THE  MODERN  MIND 

HAD  the  IngersoU  Lecture  on  Im- 
mortality been  in  existence  in 
the  eighteenth  century  there 
would  probably  have  been,  in  the  New 
England  world  which  found  its  centre  in 
Harvard  College,  but  few  to  question  the 
importance  of  the  subject  or  to  doubt  the 
right  approach  to  it.  Men  of  true  piety 
and  sound  learning  unhesitatingly  held 
that  the  authoritative  revelation  of 
Scripture  justified  the  expectation  that 
after  death  they  would  retain  or  recover 
all  the  characteristics  of  their  individual 
lives.  But  by  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  when  the  Lecture  was  founded  a 
rapid  change  had  set  in.  Men  were  no 
longer  convinced  that  the  writers  of 
Scripture  knew  more  about  a  future  life 


2      .•:.-.-;  IMMORTALITY 

than  ihey  did  themselves.  Historical 
criticism  began  to  suggest  that  writers 
who  were  far  from  infallible  in  their  de- 
scriptions of  the  past  were  not  wholly 
to  be  trusted  in  their  prognostications  of 
the  future.  The  change,  however,  was 
made  quietly.  When  confronted  with 
the  problem  in  the  pulpit  or  in  the 
lecture-room  speakers  passed  bravely 
but  silently  on.^ 

Meanwhile  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  began  to  study  the  matter  from 
the  point  of  view  of  objective  evidence 
for  the  survival  of  life  after  death.  One 
of  the  by-products,  as  it  were,  of  their 
activities  was  a  questionnaire  sent  out  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tiury  by  Dr.  Richard  Hodgson  and  the 

*  The  arguments  for  and  against  a  belief  in  Im- 
mortality did  not  answer  each  other.  The  oppo- 
nents of  the  traditional  belief  relied  on  physical, 
the  supporters  of  it  on  metaphysical  considerations. 
In  an  age  of  physical  progress  the  former  held  a 
natural  advantage. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  3 

American  branch  of  the  Society.  This 
questionnaire  was  an  attempt  to  collect 
information  as  to  the  general  attitude  of 
educated  persons  towards  belief  in  Im- 
mortality. The  answers  were  extremely 
interesting  and  are  discussed  at  length 
by  Dr.  F.  C.  S.  Schiller  in  a  paper  read 
to  the  general  meeting  of  the  Society  on 
November  14,  1902,  forming  part  49, 
pp.  416-453  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society. 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  details 
of  the  questionnaire  and  the  answers 
given  to  it.  These  show  that  the  major- 
ity of  those  consulted  were  not  deeply 
interested  in  the  continuance  of  exist- 
ence, and  that  far  more  than  might  have 
been  supposed  actually  welcomed  the 
gospel  of  Eternal  Death  as  more  com- 
forting than  the  threat  of  Eternal  Life. 
I  desire  merely  to  set  forth  the  rea- 
sons which  lead  so  many  reluctantly  to 
decline  a  prospect   dear  to  our  fore- 


4  IMMORTALITY 

fathers  and  attractive  to  ourselves,  and 
secondly  to  describe  a  new  attitude  to- 
wards life  which  seems  to  be  taking  its 
place.  I  wish  to  show  how  this  attitude 
plays  the  same  part  in  modern  life  as  the 
quest  for  individual  ImmortaKty  did  in 
a  former  age,  and  how  it  can  be  com- 
bined with  a  philosophy  which  revives 
some  features  of  the  mysticism  which 
hopes  for  Eternal  Life  rather  than  for 
Everlasting  Living,  though  the  practical 
''way"  which  it  enjoins  is  almost  the  re- 
verse of  all  that  has  usually  been  asso- 
ciated with  such  mysticism  in  the  past, 
especially  in  the  East. 

It  might  be  held  that  the  abandonment 
of  the  traditional  hope  and  the  lack  of 
interest  in  Immortality  shown  in  the 
answers  to  the  questionnaire  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research  are  due  to 
a  change  of  thought  on  the  previous 
question  whether  life  is  worth  living. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  5 

Whether,  had  we  been  consulted,  we 
should  have  been  willing  to  face  the 
troubles  of  life  or  have  preferred  to  re- 
main non-existent,  is  a  query  which 
would  probably  be  answered  in  different 
ways  by  different  persons.  The  doubt 
which  hangs  over  the  value  of  Kfe  ex- 
tends also  to  the  value  of  its  continuance; 
it  may  fairly  be  supposed  that  some  of 
those  who  in  answering  Mr.  Schiller's 
questionnaire  rejected  as  undesirable  the 
prospect  of  Immortality  would  also,  had 
they  been  asked,  have  declared  life  a 
poor  thing,  full  of  weariness,  and  not 
worth  the  trouble  of  living,  and  there 
are  probably  many  who,  without  regard- 
ing existence  with  such  marked  dislike  as 
consistently  to  wish  for  its  close,  never- 
theless accept  it  with  an  indifferent  toler- 
ance, Kving  from  necessity  rather  than 
from  choice.  Nevertheless  this  is  scarcely 
a  normal  view,  and  its  occurrence  is  not 
a  sufficient  explanation.    Many  of  those 


6  IMMORTALITY 

who  expressed  themselves  as  uninter- 
ested in  the  question  of  Immortality 
were  by  no  means  tired  or  dissatisfied, 
and  their  attitude  must  be  otherwise  ex- 
plained. For  myself,  though  I  can  per- 
haps understand  the  reasons  which  lead 
to  a  depreciation  of  life,  I  cannot  yield  to 
them.  Though  I  have  suffered  some  dis- 
abilities and  a  few  misfortunes,  life  has 
always  seemed  to  me  intensely  interest- 
ing, certainly  amusing,  possibly  useful, 
and  the  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  like  it. 
I  should  enjoy  nothing  better  than  to 
take  part  in  a  successful  return  to  Me- 
thuselah and  to  be  able  to  contemplate 
with  a  certain  smiling  seriousness  the  de- 
velopment of  events  which  now  seem 
destined  to  be  still  far  from  their  fruition 
when  my  period  of  observation  comes  to 
an  end. 

Those  who  still  cling  to  the  traditional 
hope  for  the  continuance  of  life  in  its 
present  form,  or  something  like  it,  are 


AND  MODERN  MIND  7 

wont  to  describe  the  object  of  this  hope 
as  the  ^Survival  of  Personahty/  but 
PersonaKty  is  a  difBcult  word,  and  as  I 
wish  to  use  it  presently  in  a  somewhat 
different  sense,  I  will  say  rather  'the 
Survival  of  Individuality.'  What  is  the 
nature  of  this  'Individuality'?  It  is  es- 
sentially the  boundary  line  between  us 
and  the  world  which  we  see  and  love. 
It  separates  the  worker  from  his  task, 
father  from  son,  friend  from  friend.  It 
is  the  bars  between  which  we  can  peep  — 
with  some  difficulty— and  behind  which 
we  can  hide  —  though  not  always  safely. 
The  difficulty  and  the  danger  make  up 
much  of  the  pleasure  —  as  distinct  from 
the  happiness  —  of  life.  For  unquestion- 
ably the  game  of  hide  and  seek  is  pleas- 
ant and  amusing,  and  much  of  our 
intercourse  is  little  more.  It  depends 
wholly  on  the  interplay  of  individual- 
ities, on  distinction  and  difference,  on 
conversation  rather  than  comprehension, 


8  IMMORTALITY 

on  contact  but  not  union.  It  is  idle  to 
suggest  that  it  does  not  take  with  it 
some  element  of  pleasure.  I  have  no 
sympathy  and  Uttle  patience  with  those 
who  deny  the  reahty  of  material,  physi- 
cal and  social  enjoyment  of  all  kinds; 
and  material,  physical  and  social  enjoy- 
ment, of  whatever  sort,  is  dependent  on 
individuaUty.  We  are  ourselves,  we 
wish  to  be  ourselves;  to  give  free  rein  to 
om*  own  individuality  and  to  help  others 
to  do  the  same  to  theirs  is  one  of  the  joys 
of  Kfe. 

This  pleasure  is  indeed  so  normal  that 
those  who  do  not  share  in  it  must  be  re- 
garded as  lacking  one  of  the  essential 
elements  of  vigorous  health.  To  project 
it  on  to  our  anticipation  of  the  future  is 
most  natural,  and  as  soon  as  man's  imag- 
ination once  enabled  him  to  construct 
visions  of  a  possible  triumph  over  death 
nothing  was  ever  dearer  to  human  hope 
than  the  expectation  of  a  future  life 


AND  MODERN  MIND  9 

which  would  retain  all  the  features  of 
individual  existence,  —  sensation  and 
memory,  the  society  of  friends  and  the 
joy  of  living.  It  is  not  because  our  gen- 
eration enjoys  life  less,  but  because  we 
understand  it  better,  that  so  many  turn 
their  gaze  away  from  the  alluring  pictxire 
of  the  continuance  of  existence  as  we 
know  it  now.  For  that  better  imder- 
standing  has  brought  with  it  the  con- 
viction that  the  continuance  of  sensation 
is  impossible  without  physical  structure, 
and  that  the  survival  of  physical  struc- 
ture is  extremely  improbable. 

The  hope  of  physical  continuance  has 
been  father  to  two  thoughts  which  have 
been  curiously  united  in  the  history  of 
ideas,  —  the  belief  in  the  Resinrrection 
of  the  Body,  and  the  belief  in  the  Im- 
mortality of  the  Soul. 

The  phrase  the  Resurrection  of  the 
Body  means  that ^  at  some  period  after 
death  life  will  return  to  the  corpse,  which 


lo  IMMORTALITY 

will,  so  far  as  is  necessary,  be  reconsti- 
tuted from  the  elements  into  which  it  has 
been  dissolved.  The  doctrine  was  de- 
rived through  Pharisaic  Judaism  from 
Persian  thought  and  was  held  firmly  and 
even  passionately  by  Orthodox  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  expressly  stated  in  the 
Apostles'  Creed.  Some  obscuHty  has 
attached  itself  to  this  fact  because  the 
word  which  means  ^ flesh'  was  translated 
in  the  English  Prayer  Book  by  'body,' 
and  the  word  'body'  has  proved  to  yield 
more  readily  to  that  form  of  'reinterpre- 
tation'  which  entails  proving  that  a 
word  can  be  legitimately  used  to  ex- 
press the  exact  opposite  of  the  meaning 
originally  intended;  but  it  cannot  be 
doubted  by  any  who  know  enough  Latin 
to  translate  carnis  or  Greek  to  render 
aapKos. 

In  Greek  pagan  circles  the  doctrine  of 
a  Resurrection  of  the  Flesh  was  not 
found,  but  its  place  was  taken  by  a  belief 


AND  MODERN  MIND  ii 

in  the  Immortality  of  the  SouJ.  This  is 
essentially  the  belief  that  the  body  is  a 
mechanism  kept  in  action  by  some  in- 
ternal motive  power  other  than  itself.  So 
long  as  the  motive  power  is  in  the  body, 
the  body  is  alive;  if  it  be  removed,  the 
body  dies.  That  motive  power  is  the 
soul,  and  the  individual  is  the  soul  rather 
than  the  body. 

Taken  in  their  original  and  simple 
forms  the  Resurrection  of  the  Flesh  and 
the  Immortality  of  the  Soul  are  quite 
distinct.  The  belief  in  one  is  obviously 
independent  of  the  other,  and  their  com- 
bination is  always  rather  unhappy;  but 
in  the  history  of  Western  thought  the 
fact  that  Christianity  combined  Greek 
and  Jewish  thoughts  was  stronger  than 
logic.  Greek  Christians  were  at  first 
wholly  disincHned  to  listen  to  the  Jewish 
doctrine  but  ultimately  succiunbed  to  it. 
The  way  was  paved  by  Paul  who  in  the 
first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  joined 


12  IMMORTALITY 

the  Greeks  in  rejecting  a  belief  in  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Flesh,  but  main- 
tained the  certainty  of  a  Resurrection 
from  the  dead  by  a  body  which  will  be 
spiritual  rather  than  animal.  It  is,  I 
think,  plain  that  he  means  by  this  a 
body  which  will  consist  of  spirit,  that  is 
to  say  the  lightest  and  most  ethereal 
form  of  matter,  but  his  language  is  not 
very  clear  and  some  verses,  though  not 
all,  are  capable  of  being  interpreted  as 
meaning  a  body  of  flesh  which  was  made 
alive  by  the  spirit  instead  of  by  an  ordi- 
nary soul,  so  that  it  became  spiritual  in- 
stead of  animal.^ 

1  *  Animal^  is  a  far  better  rendering  of  \l/vxt'ic6s 
than  is  'natural.*  But  Paul's  meaning  is  in  any  case 
very  difficult  to  define.  What  exactly  is  the  differ- 
ence between  'soul'  (\pvxv)  and  'spirit'  (irvevfjia)? 
Apparently  the  former  is  that  which  makes  an 
animal  alive;  thus  Adam  was  a 'living  soul.'  The 
latter  is  the  principle  of  divine  Hfe,  shared  in  by 
Christ  and  Christians.  Such  at  least  seems  to  be 
the  meaning  of  I  Corinthians;  but  in  other  places 
when  Paul  uses  the  same  words  the  distinction  is 
less  clear. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  13 

Nevertheless  the  Greek  belief  in  the 
independent  Immortality  of  the  Soul  did 
not  die.  To  the  first  generation  death 
seemed  a  short  sleep  from  which  men 
would  soon  be  awakened  by  the  last 
trump.  But  as  time  went  on  and  the 
trumpet  still  preserved  a  saecular  silence, 
the  period  assigned  to  slumber  seemed 
too  long.  The  old  belief  —  which  had 
never  died  out  —  that  the  soul  was  im- 
mortal and  survived  the  body  gained 
more  and  more  attention.  Various  fanci- 
ful hypotheses  were  presented  which  pic- 
tured the  souls  of  the  dead  enjoying  the 
pleasures  of  Paradise  in  anticipation  of 
the  permanent  joys  of  Heaven,  or  passing 
their  time  amid  the  flames  of  Purgatory, 
where  transitory  pain  might  purify  the 
sinner  so  that  he  should  escape  the  eter- 
nal pangs  of  Hell.  On  the  resurrection 
morning  the  body  would  be  awakened 
from  its  long  sleep,  and  would  be  re- 
united to  the  soul  with  which  it  would  be 


14  IMMORTALITY 

doomed  to  an  eternal  sentence  of  bliss 
or  woe. 

It  was  a  clear  cut  system,  easy  to  un- 
derstand, impossible  to  refute,  and 
throughout  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages 
it  was  the  foundation  of  the  Church,  for 
the  ferocity  of  those  ages  was  admirably 
nourished  and  partially  controlled  by  the 
thought  of  an  eternally  blessed  body  for 
the  righteous  and  of  the  unending  writh- 
ings  in  pain  of  the  wicked.  In  which 
thought  men  took  the  more  pleasiure 
would  be  diflScult  to  decide  and  unprofit- 
able to  discuss. 

Protestantism  moved  away  from  this 
theory,  but  on  moral  and  bibHcal  rather 
than  intellectual  grounds.  Outraged  by 
the  priestly  exploitation  of  purgatory 
Protestants  rejected  it  altogether  and  re- 
tained only  the  juncture  of  soul  and 
body  at  the  last  day.  What  happened  to 
the  immortal  soul  while  waiting  for  its 
appropriate  body  was  not  explained. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  15 

Purgatory  was  abolished,  but  the  Judg- 
ment, Heaven,  and  Hell  were  retained. 
It  was  a  choice  infinitely  clumsy:  it  left 
out  the  only  educative  element  in  the 
mediaeval  system,  and  retained  an  im- 
possible combination  of  worn  out  Persian 
and  Greek  mythology. 

But  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  cur- 
rent of  thought  against  this  crude  and 
horrible  doctrine  had  begun  to  flow 
strongly;  not  merely  did  men  perceive 
the  injustice  of  any  judgment  which  di- 
vided humanity  between  the  two  ex- 
tremes of  heaven  and  hell,  but,  reviving 
early  gnostic  and  pagan  objections,  they 
began  to  feel  the  general  absurdity  of 
expecting  that  the  worn  out  body  of  the 
dead  would  be  reassembled  from  the  ele- 
ments into  which  it  was  dissolved,  or  that 
new  bodies  of  similar  composition  would 
be  provided  for  souls  some  of  which  had 
existed  for  many  centuries  without  them. 
In  any  science  other  than  theology  men 


i6  IMMORTALITY 

would  have  said  that  the  creeds  were 
wrong  on  this  point,  and  that  they  could 
no  longer  aflBrm  them,  but  that  was  im- 
possible in  theology.  It  is  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  queen  of  sciences 
that  though  the  ornaments  in  which  she 
be  decked  are  constantly  changing,  her 
courtiers  often  think  that  they  must  be 
called  by  the  same  names,  and  the 
changes  be  steadfastly  denied  until  some 
time  after  they  have  become  notorious. 
So  it  was  with  the  belief  in  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  today  probably  a  majority  of 
educated  Christians  who  claim  to  accept 
the  creeds  think  that  their  ajQSrmation  of 
the  *  Resurrection  of  the  body'  merely 
means  the  'Survival  of  personal  identity.  '^ 

Turning  from  ecclesiastical  circles  to 
secular  ones  the  belief  in  the  Resurrec- 
tion of  the  Flesh  may  fairly  be  re- 
garded as  obsolete,  and  a  belief  in  the 

*  See  Appendix  I. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  17 

Survival  of  life  wavers.  The  essentials 
of  this  belief  are  that  after  death  our 
flesh  ceases  to  be  alive  and  soon  disap- 
pears, but  we  ourselves  continue  to  exist 
as  spirits.  It  here  merges  into  the  belief 
in  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  so  that 
the  tendency  of  modern  thought  is  to 
reject  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body,  in 
fact  if  not  in  word,  and  to  cling  to  the 
Immortality  of  the  Soul.  Nevertheless, 
though  we  are  none  of  us  likely  to  accept 
the  way  in  which  early  Christian  writers 
expressed  themselves,  there  is  one  essen- 
tial point  on  which  the  early  church  was 
right.  The  theory  that  the  body  is  a 
mechanism  operated  by  the  soul  which 
is  a  material  entity  composed  of  lighter 
and  more  ethereal  substance,  has  nothing 
to  commend  it  when  viewed  by  the  cold 
gaze  of  modern  science.  As  I  under- 
stand it ,  the  majority  of  physiologists  and 
psychologists  agree  that  in  this  sense 
there  is  no  evidence  for  the  existence  of 


i8  IMMORTALITY 

the  soul  at  all.  The  phenomena  of  life  as 
we  now  live  it,  including  the  facts  of  con- 
sciousness and  the  whole  complicated 
process  of  sensory  existence  are  bound 
up  with  the  body.  The  modern  scientist 
and  the  early  Christian  are  in  complete 
agreement  on  this  point,  and  there  has 
been  a  curious  and  interesting  revival 
and  reversal  of  early  arguments.  The 
modern  man  has  affirmed  the  validity  of 
primitive  Christian  reasoning  as  to  a 
Resurrection  of  the  Flesh  while  denying 
the  final  conclusion.  He  treats  as  a  re- 
ductio  ad  ahsurdum  what  to  the  early 
Christian  was  a  demonstration;  but  he 
accepts  the  intermediate  arguments. 
Thus  the  difference  between  them  is  that 
the  early  Christian,  postulating  a  future 
life,  insisted  that  in  that  life  man  must 
have  a  body,  while  the  modern  scientist, 
postulating  the  dissolution  of  the  body, 
argues  that  therefore  there  can  be  no 
future  life. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  19 

Nevertheless  there  is  one  class  of  re- 
searchers who,  in  contrast  to  all  the  rest, 
do  claim  to  produce  evidence  for  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  a  soul,  or  as  they 
more  often  call  it,  spirit,  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  body  and  survives  it.  I 
have  always  followed  their  researches 
more  superficially  than  I  ought  to  have 
done,  and  I  still  remain  sceptical.  On 
two  points,  however,  I  am  convinced. 
In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  telepathy,  or  thought-transference, 
completely  explains  all  the  phenomena. 
No  doubt  telepathy  is  a  subject  about 
which  we  know  very  little,  especially  in 
the  Western  world.  It  is  possible  that 
its  scientific  practice  might  produce  re- 
sults of  amazing  significance,  but  I  still 
cannot  see  that  this  theory  explains  the 
facts  or  that  it  is  easier  to  believe  that 
they  are  due  to  hitherto  unknown  possi- 
bilities of  telepathy  than  to  the  survival 
of  a  spirit  or  soul.  Secondly,  if  the  spirit 


20  IMMORTALITY 

survive  death  and  have  the  powers  and 
experiences  attributed  to  it,  either  it  is 
material  or  has  extraordinary  power  over 
matter.  In  either  case  its  presence  ought 
to  be  provable  by  material  and  irrefuta- 
ble tests.  If  this  were  done  I  should 
accept  the  facts  as  evidence  for  the  con- 
tiDuance  of  Hfe  beyond  death  in  a  form 
which  either  preserves  its  material  in- 
dividuality or  is  capable,  under  certain 
circumstances,  of  reproducing  the  ma- 
terial form  which  it  once  possessed. 

Meanwhile  probably  most  hold  in- 
dividual life  to  cease  with  death.  It  is 
the  intellectual  conviction  that  this  is  so, 
not  any  abnormal  tendency  to  depreciate 
natural  pleasure,  which  has  led  to  a  lack 
of  interest  in  the  question  of  Immor- 
tahty,  at  least  in  the  form  in  which  it  is 
usually  propounded.  Men  regard  the 
permanent  survival  of  their  individu- 
ality much  as  they  look  at  schemes  for 


AND  MODERN  MIND  21 

their  permanent  rejuvenation:  a  pleasant 
dream,  impossible  of  fulfilment. 

This  conclusion  is  often  deplored  by 
those  who  do  not  share  it.  But  it  has 
raised  rather  than  lowered  the  standard 
of  life.  The  pursuit  of  individual  Immor- 
tality consumed,  a  lamentable  amount 
of  energy  in  past  generations.  To  attain 
salvation  was  thought  to  be  the  object 
of  existence.  This  life  was  held  to  be  in 
the  main  a  preparation  for  another. 
Sometimes  it  was  thought  of  as  a 
wretched  period  full  of  temptations  and 
miseries,  to  be  lived  through  as  well  as 
possible,  valuable  only  because  success 
in  withstanding  temptation  and  endur- 
ing misery  would  seciure  eternal  happi- 
ness. Those  who  thought  most  narrowly 
in  this  way  were  considered  to  be  the 
best.  It  is  not  altogether  surprising  that 
people  who  argued  in  this  way  con- 
tributed little  to  the  improvement  of 


22  IMMORTALITY 

the  world  and  that  those  who  managed 
its  affairs  very  rarely  had  any  claim  to 
saintliness  of  thought  or  fineness  of  in- 
sight. There  were,  of  course,  exceptions, 
but  there  was  no  part  of  Christian  teach- 
ing which  was  so  completely  minimized 
as  the  words  of  Jesus  that  he  who  will 
seek  his  '  soul '  shall  lose  it.  Men  went  on 
year  after  year  thinking  of  nothing  so 
much  as  how  to  save  their  own  souls. 
Even  philanthropy  was  put  on  a  wrong 
basis  and  the  charity  of  the  Middle  Ages 
was  less  often  inspired  by  love  of  man 
than  by  the  hope  of  heaven.  In  general 
there  was  produced  a  type  of  selfishness 
all  the  more  repulsive  because  it  was 
sanctified. 

In  place  of  a  quest  for  Immortality 
there  is  today  among  the  most  active 
and  virile  of  our  contemporaries  a  new 
attitude  towards  life;  for  they  have  al- 
most suddenly  ceased  thinking  about 
their  own  Immortality  and  regard  their 


AND  MODERN  MIND  23 

work  as  more  important  than  their  own 
souls.  No  movement  more  remarkable 
than  this  has  affected  life  in  the  last  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  and  when  history 
comes  to  be  written  at  a  sufficient  dis- 
tance it  will  probably  appear  to  be  the 
great  change  of  our  time,  commensurate 
with  the  rise  of  Christianity  or  with  the 
Renaissance,  far  more  important  than 
wars  or  revolutions.  The  object  of  their 
work  is  in  their  minds  the  improvement 
of  the  world  in  which  our  children  are  to 
live.  It  is  an  unselfish  object,  and  the 
pursuit  of  a  better  world  for  another  gen- 
eration to  inherit  has  become  the  surro- 
gate for  the  hope  of  a  better  world  above 
for  ourselves  to  enjoy.^ 

If  I  see  the  facts  of  modern  life  rightly 
the  best  men  of  today  are  not  engaged  in 
any  strenuous  effort  to  shuffle  economic 
or  political  cards,  but  so  to  understand 
and  educate  instincts,  and  to  control  the 
1  See  Appendix  II 


24  IMMORTALITY 

circumstances  of  life  that  they  may  per- 
manently improve  the  conditions  of  the 
battle  which  man  upon  the  earth  must 
fight  against  disease,  ignorance,  and  toil. 
To  do  this  is  the  goal  which  they  have 
set  before  them,  and  is  to  them  what  the 
pursuit  of  Immortality  was  to  their 
fathers.  If  they  succeed  they  will  pro- 
duce a  world  for  their  children  to  in- 
habit which  will  be  better  than  that  in 
which  they  have  lived  themselves.  They 
themselves  will  never  enter  the  Land  of 
Promise,  but  it  is  sufficient  for  them  to 
have  seen  it  afar  off.  Their  life  has  come 
to  mean  less  to  them  than  their  work. 
It  may  be  true  that  philosophically 
speaking  most  of  them  are  materialists 
and  the  Christian  preacher  is  often 
shocked  at  their  plainly  stated  disregard 
for  all  questions  concerning  a  future  life. 
Nevertheless  there  is  no  type  of  man  at 
present  living  who  so  completely  sacri- 
fices himself  for  the  good  of  others  or 


AND  MODERN  MIND  25 

cares  so  little  about  saving  his  own  life. 
They  are  not  seeking  the  crown,  but 
many  of  them  are  bearing  the  cross,  and 
though  seeking  the  crown  has  been  the 
practice  of  the  Christian,  bearing  the 
cross  was  the  precept  of  the  Christ. 

Therefore,  even  if  the  conclusion  that 
individual  life  ceased  with  death  were 
new  I  should  not  be  afraid  of  it,  judged 
by  its  effect  on  men.  But  it  is  not  new 
except  in  the  Western  world;  for  in  the 
East  the  permanent  survival  of  individ- 
uality has  long  been  regarded  by  many 
as  undesirable,  and  improbable  except 
in  the  form  of  retributive  reincarnations. 
There,  indeed,  the  longing  to  escape  the 
confinement  of  individuality  is  as  marked 
as  the  desire  to  retain  it  is  common  in  the 
West.  It  does  not,  however,  mean  a  de- 
sire for  or  a  belief  in  the  destruction  of 
Life.  Nirvana  is  not  annihilation,  it  is 
the  release  of  Life  from  the  limitations 
of  living. 


26  IMMORTALITY 

The  Oriental  saint  seeks  this  goal  by 
attempting  to  set  life  free  by  the  renun- 
ciation of  all  desire  or  even  of  all  action.^ 
The  tendency  of  modern  life  just  dis- 
cussed seems  to  afford  both  a  parallel 
and  a  contrast  to  this  Eastern  mysticism, 
for,  as  Bernard  Shaw  once  pointed  out, 
many  of  the  great  scientists  and  business 
men  of  today  are  not  so  much  sceptics  as 
mystics.  Though  perhaps  few  of  thena 
would  express  the  facts  in  quite  this  way 
they  have  reached  a  belief  in  the  Im- 
mortality of  Life  which  does  not  entail 
the  perpetuation  of  individuality,  —  so 
far  the  position  is  parallel  to  Eastern 
thought.  But  it  affords  a  contrast  in 
that  they  find  the  way  of  life  by  identi- 
fication with  the  work  of  the  world,  not 
by  seeking  release  from  it.  Such  men  are 

^  This  is  only  true  of  certain  sects,  some  of 
which  renounce  action,  others  merely  abandon 
desire;  but  the  popular  cults,  such  as  that  of 
Krishna,  offer  the  immortal  salvation  of  the  in- 
dividual. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  27 

conscious  of  an  extension  of  life  beyond 
the  limits  of  individuality,  and  without, 
like  the  Eastern  mystics,  underestimating 
the  pleasures  or  exaggerating  the  pains 
of  individuality,  set  over  against  them 
the  conviction  that  individuality  is  the 
limitation  rather  than  the  expression  of 
life;  that  it  is  the  barriers  which  confine 
personality,  not  the  form  which  it  must 
inevitably  take  and  that  these  barriers 
are  sometimes  lifted.  This  feeling,  for  it 
is  a  feeling  or  an  experience  rather  than 
a  logical  thought,  is  reached  in  several 
ways. 

There  is  the  way  of  the  worker  who  has 
so  engrossed  himself  in  his  work  that  he 
has  become  part  of  it,  can  stand  outside 
his  own  individuality,  realize  its  mis- 
takes and  shortcomings,  appreciate  the 
contribution  made  by  others  to  the  same 
work  and  feel  that  in  the  unity  of  the 
work  the  barriers  of  individuality  are 
lifted  and  the  personality  of  the  many 


28  IMMORTALITY 

workers  is  one.  Yet  to  him  who  has  this 
experience  hfe  is  enriched  not  impover- 
ished; he  has  not  lost  a  home  but  gained 
rather  freedom  from  a  prison.  The  bar- 
riers close  down  once  more  and  with 
their  closing  the  sense  of  unity  grows  dim, 
the  perception  that  the  imperfections  of 
many  workers  complement  each  other 
for  the  perfection  of  the  whole  gives 
place  once  more  to  the  insistent  yet  dis- 
satisfying emphasis  on  the  necessity  of 
one's  own  work  and  the  superiority  of 
one's  own  truth.  Yet  though  the  bar- 
riers close,  the  memory  that  they  were 
once  open  remains,  and  individuality  can 
never  again  seem  quite  the  infinitely  im- 
portant thing  it  once  was. 
^  Closely  aUied  to  this  is  the  way  of  the 
artist.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is 
not  really  the  same  way,  but  I  mean 
rather  the  way  of  the  artist  who  enjoys 
art  than  of  him  who  produces  it.  For 
the  contemplation  of  beautiful  things 


AND  MODERN  MIND  29 

whether  by  eye  or  by  ear  results  in  that 
same  raising  of  the  barriers  and  in  a  curi- 
ous recognition  of  the  unity  of  Ufe.  It 
was  Wordsworth  who  at  times  was  so 
overcome  by  this  feeHng  that  he  had  as 
it  were  to  remind  himself  by  some  sud- 
den appeal  to  the  senses  of  his  actual  in- 
dividuahty.  He  had  lost  himself  in  the 
contemplation  of  beauty.  Had  he,  or 
had  he  found  himself? 

On  a  higher  level,  yet  perhaps  more 
common,  is  one  of  the  rarer  experiences 
of  friendship.  As  we  go  on  our  way 
through  the  world  we  make  an  infinite 
number  of  acquaintances  to  whom  we 
show  and  of  whom  we  see  as  much  as  it 
suits  us  both  to  permit.  There  are  others 
to  whom  we  would  gladly  show  more,  of 
whom  we  would  gladly  see  more,  yet  we 
cannot.  It  is  beyond  our  power  to  lift 
the  barriers.  Intercourse  with  such  per- 
sons is  strictly  limited  by  the  possibil- 
ities of  speech.  But  there  are  others,  not 


30  IMMORTALITY 

very  many,  with  whom  it  suddenly 
seems  as  though  the  barriers  were  raised 
and  the  discovery  is  made  that  in  spite 
of  outward  appearances  there  is  a  real 
unity  on  which  the  two  can  rest.  Such 
moments  of  discovery  have  nothing  to 
do  with  length  of  acquaintance,  age,  or 
sex,  and  possibly  they  do  not  come  at  all 
to  everyone,  nor  do  they  always  remain, 
but  they  are  never  forgotten. 

The  highest  point  in  this  experience  is 
reached  by  the  religious  mystic.  He  has 
always  felt  that  the  goal  of  existence  was 
a  union  with  God  so  complete  that  it 
transcended  the  Umits  of  individuality 
and  the  mystic  and  God  were  completely 
unified.  To  such  a  mystic  individuality 
was  something  to  be  overcome,  not  to  be 
retained,  yet  to  overcome  it  was  no  loss, 
—  his  personality  was  not  the  same  as  his 
individuality.  To  him,  if  he  happened  to 
be  a  Christian,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity, the  one  God  in  three  Persons,  was 


AND  MODERN  MIND  31 

the  ultimate  reality  of  which  all  life  is 
but  a  pale  reflection.  In  the  Divine  Be- 
ing personality  was  free  and  unhampered 
by  the  limits  of  that  individuaHty  which 
confines  human  personality.  How  it 
could  be  so,  how  diversity  and  unity 
could  each  be  complete  and  neither  in- 
fringe on  the  other,  was  a  mystery  which 
the  mystic  could  understand  as  little  as 
other  men.  Yet  he  avoided  the  heresy 
which  leaves  no  room  for  reality  in  di- 
verseness  or  the  other  more  orthodox 
heresy,  if  one  may  so  call  it,  which  treats 
personality  as  individuality  and  reduces 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  a  weakened 
tritheism,  for  his  own  experience,  though 
it  could  not  explain,  helped  to  illuminate 
the  doctrine.  Not  often,  it  may  be,  yet 
sometimes  in  the  course  of  contempla- 
tion and  meditation  the  barriers  have 
been  lifted  and  the  mystic  has  found 
himself  for  a  few  moments  in  that  world 
of  reality,  beyond  good  and  evil,  in  which 


32  IMMORTALITY 

the  ^  one '  and  the  '  other '  find  unity  with- 
out loss,  where  God  and  man  know  that 
they  are  one,  and  man  discovers  that 
what  he  has  lost,  if  it  be  called  loss,  is  not 
himself,  and  that  here,  too,  the  saying  is 
true  that  he  who  will  lose  his  life  shall 
find  it. 

This  experience  of  ^lifted  barriers'  is 
never  permanent.  As  with  the  worker, 
so  with  the  artist,  as  with  the  mystic  so 
with  the  friend,  the  barriers  are  only 
lifted  at  times.  For  all  our  desire  to 
keep  them  open  they  close  inexorably 
when  the  time  has  come  and  the  limita- 
tions of  individuality  reassert  them- 
selves. But  though  the  way  be  often 
closed,  the  lock  has  a  key  and  those 
among  the  children  of  men  are  perhaps 
most  blessed  who  have  that  key  and  use 
it.  To  open  the  lock  and  lift  the  barrier 
is  Heaven;  to  find  that  one  has  allowed 
the  key  to  rust  or  the  lock  to  become 
clogged  is  Hell.   With  the  imperfect  na- 


AND  MODERN  MIND  33 

ture  which  most  men  have,  no  doubt  the 
key  often  rusts  and  the  lock  is  often 
clogged,  but  not  irretrievably,  and  if  to 
enjoy  Heaven  sometimes  it  is  necessary 
to  be  in  Hell  at  others,  the  price  is  not 
too  great. 

This  is  my  own  creed.  Like  many 
other  creeds  it  may  be  held  without 
any  conscious  relation  to  metaphysical 
theory.  Nevertheless  relation  to  meta- 
physical theory  is,  I  think,  clearly 
implied.  It  excludes  materialists  and 
their  kinsmen,  nominalists,  but  is  easy  of 
understanding  to  those  who  cling  with 
tenacity  to  a  belief  in  the  Immaterial 
and  in  the  permanence  of  Life,  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  process  of  living.  It  is 
with  this  class  that  I  myself  feel  increas- 
ing sympathy,  for  with  advancing  years 
one  of  the  things  which  become  clearer 
amid  so  much  that  grows  more  obscure 
is  the  difference  between  Life  and  Living. 
I  can  see  no  reason  for  believing  in  a  soul 


34  IMMORTALITY 

of  however  ethereal  a  substance  which 
keeps  the  body  aHve  and  will  ultimately 
leave  it,  but  I  do  see  that  there  is  reason 
for  believing  as  firmly  in  the  reality  of 
the  Immaterial  as  in  that  of  the  Ma- 
terial. I  have  never  felt  obliged  to  stake 
my  intellectual  all  on  a  decision  between 
universalia  post  rem^  ante  rem  or  even  in 
re,  but  that  the  Immaterial  is  real  is  the 
one  thing  which  to  me  is  fundamental. 
My  senses  assure  me  of  the  Material,  my 
mind  of  the  Immaterial.  Thought  and 
Life,  but  not  Living  and  Thinking,  seem 
to  me  to  belong  wholly  to  the  immaterial 
world.  Living  and  Thinking  are  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Material  and  the  Immaterial. 
I  can  conceive,  though  I  cannot  imagine. 
Life  without  Living,  or  Thought  with- 
out Thinking,  for  the  Immaterial  is  con- 
ceivable though  quite  unimaginable,  so 
that  it  cannot  be  visualized;  and  though 
there  be  many  who,  like  myself,  cannot 
avoid  visualizing  every  thought,  how- 


AND  MODERN  MIND  35 

ever  abstract,  reason  tells  us  to  disregard 
that  visualization  as  an  error  due  to  the 
personal  equation  in  our  system. 

One  of  the  essentials  in  the  Immaterial, 
as  I  believe  all  philosophers  who  have 
thought  along  these  lines  have  recog- 
nized, is  that  in  it  Unity  and  Diversity 
are,  to  borrow  theological  language,  co- 
eternal  and  consubstantial  together. 
Once  more,  this  is  conceivable  though 
not  imaginable;  but  it  affords  the  answer 
to  one  of  the  riddles  of  life.  For  if  we  say 
that  Personality  is  immaterial  while  In- 
dividuality is  the  combination  of  the 
Material  and  the  Immaterial,  it  is  possi- 
ble to  see  how  it  is  rational  to  reject  the 
Immortality  of  the  individual,  who  is 
the  combination  of  Material  and  Imma- 
terial, while  accepting  the  eternity  of  the 
person  who  is  immaterial.  The  words 
are  bad  for  popular  use,  for  in  common 
speech  'personal'  and  individual'  have 
come  to  mean  the  same  thing;  but  I 


36  IMMORTALITY 

know  no  other  phrases  which  are  better, 
and  the  theologian  at  least  has  no  diflGi- 
culty  in  recognizing  that  one  chapter  of 
the  history  of  doctrine  is  the  attempt  to 
use  the  word  ^person'  to  express  the 
reality  of  distinction  in  the  Immaterial 
alongside  of  the  most  complete  unity.  In 
that  sense  a  personal  God  and  personal 
Immortality  are  conceivable  though  not 
imaginable;  in  other  senses,  to  me  at 
least,  they  are  imaginable  but  not  con- 
ceivable. 

That  is  my  own  confessio  fidei.  I  en- 
joy my  own  existence,  I  enjoy  all  of  it, 
its  bad,  I  fear,  as  well  as  its  good.  But  I 
am  not  so  much  intoxicated  by  the  love 
of  my  own  individuality  as  to  think  that 
it  can  be  or  ought  to  be  immortal.  If  I 
am  my  own  individuality  and  nothing 
else  there  is  no  more  to  say.  But  at 
times  I  have  felt  the  assurance  that  I 
and  my  friends  share  in  a  common  life 
which  is  ours,  rather    than  mine    or 


AND  MODERN  MIND  37 

theirs.  Greatly  though  I  enjoy  the  Kfe 
which  is  mine,  I  prize  yet  more  highly 
that  which  is  ours.  The  sense  of  individ- 
uality is  swallowed  up  in  unity;  yet  the 
sense  of  distinction  survives  the  loss  of 
difference.  I  think  that  I  know  that  the 
work  which  I  have  to  do  is  life  and  that 
it  is  mine,  in  spite  of  the  limitations  of  an 
individuality  which  hampers  and  thwarts 
quite  as  often  as  it  helps  and  forwards, 
and  that  it  will  still  be  mine,  when  the 
barrier  of  those  limitations  is  removed. 
And  at  times  I  have  thought  that  I  have 
seen  a  glimpse  of  the  great  light  of  eter- 
nity transfiguring  the  mountains  of  time, 
and  have  known  that  when  it  shall  finally 
lighten  the  darkness  which  now  sepa- 
rates us,  I  and  my  friends  and  my  work 
will  find  in  it  forever  the  unity  which 
resolves  difference  yet  preserves  dis- 
tinction. 


38  IMMORTALITY 


APPENDIX  I 

THE  ABANDONMENT  IN   THE  CHURCH 
OF  THE  BELIEF  IN  THE  RESUR- 
RECTION OF  THE  FLESH 

The  way  in  which  this  change  was 
brought  about  in  England  is  very  inter- 
esting and  may  serve  as  an  illustration 
of  a  process  which  has  been  almost  uni- 
versal in  Protestantism. 

Until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  opinion  in  England  main- 
tained the  same  position  as  Catholic 
theologians.  They  held  uncompromis- 
ingly to  the  opinion  demanded  by  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  affirmed  the  Resur- 
rection of  the  Flesh.  The  first  theolo- 
gian who  abandoned  this  attitude  was 
perhaps  F.  D.  Maurice,  but  the  natural 
obscurity  of  his  style  renders  it  hard  to 
say  exactly  what  he  meant,  and  Bishop 


AND  MODERN  MIND  39 

Westcott  is  really  the  author  of  the 
great  change.  He  entirely  abandoned 
belief  in  the  Resurrection  of  the  Flesh 
as  formulated  in  the  Creed;  but  he  never 
said  so.  On  the  contrary  he  used  all  his 
matchless  powers  of  shading  language, 
so  that  the  change  from  white  to  black 
appeared  inevitable,  natural,  indeed 
scarcely  perceptible.  He  writes,  for 
instance,  in  The  Historic  Faith,  page  136, 
as  follows:  ^'I  believe  in  the  resurrection 
of  the  flesh.  But  in  shaping  for  our- 
selves this  belief  we  need  to  use  more 
than  common  care  lest  we  allow  gross, 
earthly  thoughts  to  intrude  into  a 
realm  where  they  have  no  place.  The 
^ flesh'  of  which  we  speak  as  destined 
to  a  resurrection  is  not  that  material 
substance  which  we  can  see  and  handle, 
measured  by  properties  of  sense." 

Thus  he  explained  that  when  the 
Creed  spoke  of  the  Resurrection  of  the 
Body  it  did  not  mean  the  Resurrection 


40  IMMORTALITY 

of  the  Flesh  (though  both  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  originals  it  said  so),  but  that 
it  was  aflSrming  the  Survival  of  Per- 
sonal Identity.  No  doubt  it  was;  but 
it  was  aflSrming  that  this  personal  iden- 
tity was  maintained  in  a  special  manner, 
and  it  was  this  point  which  the  bishop 
entirely  passed  by. 

The  same  position  was  maintained  by 
Bishop  Gore.  He  writes,  for  instance, 
in  The  Creed  of  the  Christian^  page  92, 
as  follows:  ^^We  believe  for  certain  in  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  This  does  not 
mean  that  the  particles  of  our  former 
bodies,  which  were  laid  in  the  grave 
and  which  have  decayed  and  passed  into 
all  sorts  and  forms  of  natural  life,  will 
be  collected  together  again;  but  it 
means  that  we  in  our  same  selves  shall 
be  re-clothed  in  a  spiritual  body  which 
we  shall  recognise  as  our  own  unchanged 
selves." 

A  more  complete  denial  of  the  Creed 


AND  MODERN  MIND  41 

cannot  be  imagined,  and  the  situation 
is  not  improved  by  the  fact  that  Bishop 
Gore,  unUke  Bishop  Westcott,  did  not 
shrink  from  quoting  the  erroneous  Eng- 
lish translation,  —  ^  body'  instead  of 
^ flesh,' — though  he  knew,  even  if  most 
of  his  readers  did  not,  what  the  original 
Greek  really  was. 

It  speaks  much  for  the  power  which 
these  two  bishops  had  over  the  English 
language  that  they  were  successful  in 
imposing  the  change  on  the  English 
Church  with  scarcely  a  struggle.  To 
historians  it  was  obvious,  of  course,  that 
the  Creed  had  been  denied,  though  by 
way  of  paraphrase  rather  than  by  con- 
tradiction, but  it  was  not  so  stated,  and 
when  in  1922,  Mr.  Major,  the  Principal 
of  Ripon  Hall  in  Oxford,  put  the  case 
frankly  he  was  delated  to  his  bishop  as 
a  heretic.  He  did  not,  however,  follow 
the  poUcy  of  Bishops  Westcott  and  Gore, 
but  admitted  that  though  the  Church 


42  IMMORTALITY 

had  on  the  whole  always  maintained  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Flesh,  the  Church 
had  been  wrong.^  He  claimed  that  it 
was  a  proper  use  of  liberty  to  explain 
the  Creed  in  such  a  way  as  to  aflBrm 
the  contrary  of  its  original  meaning, 
and  to  ^ interpret"  the  Resurrection 
of  the  Body  as  meaning  the  continu- 
ance of  personal  life  without  ^^any  of 
the  physical  integuments  of  this  present 
body."  He  won  his  case.  But  the 
reasons  given  by  the  Bishop  of  Ox- 
ford in  acquitting  him  are  remarkable. 
Mr.  Major  said,  ^'I  desire  to  state  as 
plainly  as  possible  that  I  do  not  hold, 
nor  do  I  make  any  pretence  in  my 
teaching  to  hold,  that  belief  in  the  mode 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  which 

1  Mr.  Major  has  published  a  most  admirable 
statement  of  his  case,  including  a  catena  of  quota- 
tions from  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  to  establish 
the  Catholic  position.  See  A  Resurrection  of  Relics, 
by  H.  D.  A.  Major,  published  by  Basil  Blackwell, 
Oxford,  1922,  price  two  shillings. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  43 

has  been  held  by  the  CathoUc  Church 
for  eighteen  centuries." 

The  bishop's  comment  is:  "I  do  not 
find  that  Mr.  Major  denies  the  doctrine 
of  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body:  in 
fact,  he  positively  asserts  his  beUef  in 
Hhe  full  survival  of  all  that  constitutes 
whatever  is  essential  to  human  personal- 
ity; in  short,  all  that  is  meant  by  per- 
sonal identity.' 

"I  notice  the  extreme  candour  and 
almost  exaggerated  emphasis  with  which 
Mr.  Major  declares  that  he  cannot 
reconcile  his  teaching  ^with  the  Catho- 
lic tradition,'  inasmuch  as  he  beUeves 
that  the  Catholic  tradition  is  not  com- 
patible with  the  teaching  of  Scripture. 
I  beheve  he  is  mistaken,  and  his  mistake 
is  due  to  the  limited  view  he  takes  of 
Catholic  tradition." 

So  it  was  decided  that  Mr.  Major  was 
orthodox  malgre  lui.  It  is  a  very  im- 
portant incident,  for  it  is  the  first  oflBcial 


44  IMMORTALITY 

recognition  in  England  that  if  the 
Apostles'  Creed  should  appear  to  be 
wrong,  it  can  still  be  affirmed  by  mak- 
ing it  mean  the  opposite  of  that  which 
its  writer  intended.  I  have  myself 
sometimes  wondered  whether  it  would 
not  be  simpler  to  say  that  the  Creed  is 
wrong  and  to  cease  affirming  it,  but  the 
result  reached  is  much  the  same,  for 
very  often  in  Hfe,  as  in  chess,  Bishops 
move  obhquely. 


AND  MODERN  MIND  45 

APPENDIX  II 

THE  QUEST  FOR  A  BETTER  WORLD 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  summarize 
the  two  ways  in  which  this  quest  for 
a  better  world  seems  to  be  most  success- 
fully pursued. 

The  first  is  the  necessary  attempt  to 
conquer  the  cross-strains  and  pressure 
of  personal  life.  It  is  becoming  plainer 
and  plainer  that  the  Kfe  of  the  natural 
man  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  instincts 
many  of  which  cannot  be  fully  satisfied 
without  inciurring  the  severest  social 
condemnation.  Previous  generations 
contented  themselves  with  suppression, 
a  policy  which,  if  completely  successful, 
does  more  than  anything  else  to  destroy 
all  energy  and  produce  either  feeble 
mediocrity  or  nervous  instability.  The 
Victorian  epoch  insisted  on  dividing  in- 
stincts into  good  and  bad,  categories 


46  IMMORTALITY 

for  which  instincts  were  never  intended, 
but  our  generation  is  learning  that  they 
are  ahnost  wholly  physiological  reac- 
tions on  man's  psychology.  Therefore 
what  is  needed  is  not  suppression  but 
transmutation,  or,  to  use  the  word 
which  has  become  popular,  sublimation. 
Viewed  from  this  point  education  has 
become  a  different  thing.  To  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mind,  and  the  acquisi- 
tion of  fundamental  information  it  has 
added  the  training  of  instinct.  We  are 
at  present  passing  through  a  period  of 
transition  and  some  teachers  are  making 
the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the  train- 
ing and  utilization  of  instinct  is  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  intelhgent  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  But  experience  may  be 
trusted  to  bring  wisdom,  and  mean- 
while there  is  some  hope  that  a  new  and 
happier  era  has  dawned  in  which  the 
superabundant  natural  instinct  of 
naughty  children,  troublesome  under- 


AND  MODERN  MIND  47 

graduates,  and  youthful  criminals  will 
be  treated  in  some  more  reasonable  way 
than  ranking  them  with  defectives  and 
degenerates,  so  that  the  excess  of  energy, 
of  which  their  misdeeds  are  the  measure, 
may  be  transmuted  into  good.  It  may 
be  said  that  children  outgrow  their 
naughtiness.  That  is  true;  but  I  be- 
lieve that  in  the  past  many  children 
who  had  outgrown  their  naughtiness 
also  outgrew  their  intelligence.  Some 
children,  of  course,  cannot  be  suppressed, 
but  others  can,  and  there  are  few  sadder 
sights  than  the  dull,  virtuous,  respect- 
able and  thoroughly  useless  person  who 
bears  on  every  feature  the  signs  of  sup- 
pressed childhood.  The  problem  is  not 
how  to  suppress  but  how  to  direct  into 
useful  channels  the  energy  which  mis- 
deeds often  represent. 

If  this  be  called  the  conquest  of  in- 
stinct the  second  object  which  men  set 
before  themselves  today  is  the  conquest 


48  IMMORTALITY 

of  circumstances.  The  greatest  dis- 
covery of  our  own  time,  so  great  that 
it  will  take  another  generation  to  see  its 
importance,  is  that  man  has  it  in  his 
power  to  control  material  circumstances 
in  this  world  so  as  to  make  existence  an 
altogether  better  and  more  valuable 
thing  than  it  has  ever  been  before.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  if  as 
much  devotion  and  energy,  and  only 
half  as  much  money,  as  was  devoted  in 
the  days  of  war  to  the  preparation  of 
death  were  transmuted  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  life  it  would  be  possible  in  the 
course  of  a  single  generation  to  stamp 
out  many  diseases,  to  improve  the  gen- 
eral conditions  of  existence,  and  to  do 
one  other  thing  which  would  go  far 
toward  giving  civilization,  for  the  first 
time  in  history,  a  stable  basis. 

This  other  thing  is  the  diminution  of 
unintelligent  Hoil.'  Of  course  ^work' 
cannot  be  aboHshed,  nor  do  I  mean  that 


AND  MODERN  MIND  49 

^work'  is  undesirable  or  unpleasant. 
But  there  is  a  real  difference  between 
Hoir  and  ^work/  which  enters,  I  think, 
in  relation  to  the  freedom  of  the  crea- 
tive will.  Man  —  the  right  kind  of 
man  —  will  work  himself  to  the  bone  in 
order  to  create,  by  himself  or  in  co- 
operation with  others,  that  which  he  has 
foreseen  and  willed.  He  will  be  happy 
and  contented  in  doing  so.  But  if  the 
conditions  of  society  deprive  him  of  this 
power  of  free  will,  and  he  become  merely 
an  instrimient  in  the  hand  of  others,  his 
work  is  merely  HoiP  and  the  better 
educated  and  more  intelligent  he  is  the 
less  he  can  endure  it. 

Up  till  the  present,  the  price  of  civili- 
zation has  been  the  unremitting  Hoil' 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  population. 
Whether  they  were  slaves  or  whether 
they  were  wage-earners  has  made  no 
real  difference,  and  re-shuffing  the  eco- 
nomic cards  only  changed  appearances; 


50  IMMORTALITY 

the  fact  has  remained  unchanged  that 
if  there  was  to  be  civiUzation  the  ma- 
jority of  the  population  had  to  spend 
its  Ufe  in  unpleasant  and  frequently 
quite  unwilling  labours.  Again  and 
again  civilization  has  been  built  up  on 
this  basis,  only  to  fall  in  ruins  when  the 
toilers  refused  to  toil.  To  many  of  us 
it  seems  probable  that  the  spread  of 
education  added  to  factory  production 
will  hasten  rather  than  delay  a  similar 
debacle  in  our  generation,  for  the  educa- 
tion of  factory  workers  makes  their 
condition  more  obvious  and  more  in- 
tolerable every  day.  But,  though  curi- 
ously Uttle  noticed  by  the  general  public 
a  new  factor  has  been  introduced  in  the 
form  of  devices,  of  which  I  understand 
few  and  could  properly  describe  none, 
which  tend  to  take  the  burden  off  the 
human  worker  and  pass  it  over  to  our 
common  mother,  the  earth.  If  the 
benefits  to  be  derived  from  these  meth- 


AND  MODERN  MIND  51 

ods  can  be  adequately  explained  and 
equitably  divided  they  will  form  a  ^new 
fact'  in  the  history  of  civilization  which 
may  prevent  the  recurrence  of  the 
periodic  ruin  which  has  always  come 
when  men  revolted  against  the  burden 
of  toil.  Moreover,  I  think  that  I  see 
dimly  that  there  is  an  inspiring  mmiber 
of  leaders  in  the  manufacturing  world 
of  today  who  are  reforming  the  condi- 
tions of  life  on  this  principle.  Even  to 
those  who  cannot  understand  the  de- 
tails the  general  outline  of  their  efforts 
is  entrancingly  interesting,  and  espe- 
cially to  teachers.  For  education,  by 
making  men  more  intolerant  of  Hoil,' 
is  hastening  the  day  of  disaster;  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  by  making  them 
more  intelligent  it  is  rendering  possible 
a  reformation  of  society  and  a  really 
stable  civilization.  It  is  indeed  ^^a  two 
handed  engine  at  the  door";  which  way 
is  it  going  to  strike? 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  U.S.A. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


-JUN    6    1038 


xyf 


m^ 


£-3' 


LD  21-95)n-7,'37 


ID    ^OilOU 


